One other question - is there a way I can find out what commands are database independent? Like i said, I'm writing this with MySQL and am using the mysql documentation for reference. is there a better site to use for reference that is database independent?

if i were using oracle, it would look like my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:oracle:database=$CONF{'database'};host=localhost", "$CONF{'username'}", "$CONF{'password'}") or &error("<I>Couldn't connect to database:</I> " . DBI->errstr);

what do i do to get it to automatically determine the part i put in bold?